“Why didn’t he do something?” Earl said.
“He did,” Burke said, getting to his feet. “He stopped trouble. Nothing big, just something that might have embarrassed the woman and got the kids in a jam. A little neighborhood hassle, some bad feeling all round. That’s what he stopped. That’s how he earns his dough.” He took a few toothpicks from a porcelain cup on the counter. “Don’t worry about him, kid. He won’t get in our way.”
“Hell, who’s worried?” Earl said. He still felt a cold antagonism toward the big cop; there was something familiar about him, he thought, although he knew he’d never seen him before in his life.
“You take care of the check,” Burke said. “I’ll pay you back tomorrow night.” He grinned and patted Earl on the shoulder. “I’m expecting some dough by then...”
Ten minutes later Earl drove out of Crossroads on the main highway, making a careful note of all intersections and landmarks. He was an expert at this kind of thing; his directional instincts were uncannily accurate and he had an excellent memory for terrain. In the Army he had been able to lead his platoon for miles without straying more than a degree or two off course. He was like a good bird dog, with a compass inside him to keep his nose to the scent.
Earl spent two hours following the network of narrow dirt roads that twisted through the rolling farmlands around the village of Crossroads. To the general information he had received from Novak, he added details for his private intelligence; detours, bypasses, short cuts and dead ends — he pinpointed and measured them, storing them away for possible future use. Twice he drove back to Crossroads and started out fresh from the corner of the bank building, plotting alternative escape routes to fit any conceivable emergency. He even checked the alleys of the village, knowing he would need them if they were trapped by a traffic jam or roadblock.
The work filled him with importance; it seemed a solid and serious thing to be doing.
At two o’clock he stopped for gas at a station on the main highway a few miles from Crossroads. He told the boy to fill it up and got out to look at the weather. The sun had gone under the clouds, and the sky was dark and heavy in the west. A thin cold rain had begun to fall, and a wind stirred the bare trees. But now the gloom of the countryside didn’t depress him. The black fields and the great V-shaped flocks of geese pointing high and south against the gray skies — for some reason they seemed to make his own loneliness significant and bearable.
The gas attendant whistled and said, “Boy, this is a real sleeper. She don’t look like much, but she’ll go, I bet.”
Earl turned and saw that the boy had raised the hood and was staring admiringly at the engine. “I told you I just wanted gas,” Earl said, his anger putting a bite to the words. “Put that damned hood down. I’m in a hurry.”
“Well, sure, I didn’t know—” The boy was in his late teens, open-faced and confident, but the anger in Earl’s voice brought a flush to his cheeks. “I was just going to check the oil and water. It’s part of our regular service.”
“Never mind the regular service,” Earl said. He realized that he was behaving stupidly, marking the incident in the boy’s memory. It was a small thing but it could be serious; Novak had told him expressly not to gas up near Crossroads. “Sorry I snapped at you,” he said, trying to smile. “But I’m in a hurry.”
“I should have asked you, I guess. But she’s a beautiful job.” The boy’s smile came back. “High-compression head, special carburetors — I’ll bet she travels.”
“I’m on the road a lot,” Earl said. He took his change and tipped the boy a quarter. “Saving time means saving money.”
The boy grinned and patted the hood. “I’ll bet she’ll take those foreign sports jobs without much trouble.”
“She can move all right,” Earl said. He waved good-by to the boy and started back for Crossroads. It wasn’t too serious, he thought. Lots of salesmen drove stepped-up cars. And his explanation had been quick and neat. Saving time means saving money. That would make sense to the kid. That wouldn’t give him anything to gossip about...
Earl drew up alongside the bank in Crossroads and checked his watch. Two thirty, but he wasn’t hungry. He decided to drive over the escape route before stopping for lunch. Pulling out slowly from the curb he tried to imagine how it would be tomorrow night; dark to start with, the colored man and Burke in the seat behind him, and the car plowing away under full power. He drove down the tree-lined side street and turned left at the second intersection. After a half-dozen blocks he came to a slum area, rows of shabby houses with muddy front yards and colored people moving along the sidewalks. Another half mile and he was out in the country, traveling on a hard-surface road that ran between meadows and stands of poplar trees. This was where he would use all the power he could ram out of the souped-up car — on this six-mile stretch. Earl touched the accelerator and the speedometer needle swung smoothly to fifty, then to sixty and on toward seventy, the engine whining softly with the tremendous surge of power. Earl laughed as the cold rain stung his face through the open window, and he sensed the black trees whipping past him.
Tomorrow night he would barrel along here at almost twice this speed, with every second he could save adding a precious margin of safety to their escape. This was part of Novak’s plan; the powerful car and the straight, hard getaway road, a combination that would hurl them beyond any roadblocks that could be thrown up by the state cops.
Earl slowed down when he came to a big, rain-blackened barn on the right of the road. Here Novak would be waiting for them in the sedan. Changing cars would just take a few seconds. The station wagon would go into the empty barn, rammed inside an old corn crib; it might not be discovered for days. They would roll off in the sedan, the colored man at the wheel in a chauffeur’s jacket and visored cap, Earl and Burke wearing overcoats and fedoras that Novak had bought in Philadelphia. They would hit the main highway about two minutes after leaving the bank in Crossroads. In another few minutes they would be gone for good, rolling smoothly toward Baltimore, miles outside the roadblock area.
Earl drove on past the barn and turned into a road that led away from the highway, twisting deeper into the back country. He relaxed and lighted a cigarette, enjoying the smooth power of the car under his instinctively efficient hands. After a while he came to raw country, neglected and run-down; the pasturage there was overgrown with heavy-headed thistle, and the fence posts hung rotten and useless on rusted strands of barbed wire.
Earl stopped and climbed out onto the muddy road, staring around with a faint smile on his face. He liked the rough, abandoned look of this area; there was work to be done here, good hard work. A heavy silence settled around him, broken only by the rain and the occasional lonely cry of birds in a stand of trees rising like black smudge on the horizon. He pulled his muffler tight about his throat, and strolled down the road, enjoying the fresh, damp air on his face. It was getting dark, he realized, and it was just a little after three. Only a few silver patches gleamed in the gray sky, and the birds sounded as if they were settling down for the night.
But he didn’t mind the cold and lonely approach of evening; he was in a relaxed and cheerful frame of mind. He was thinking about Lorraine. It occurred to him that their trouble was living in the city, cooped up in a little box with nothing to look at but lots of other little boxes. Depending on dozens of strangers for their food and drink and clothing. Grocers, delivery boys, plumbers — people you were helpless without.